Chris Petit – författare

An epic and hauntingly topical geopolitical thriller spanning six decades and three continents, The Human Pool confirms the journalist and award-winning filmmaker Chris Petit as the heir to John le Carré and Robert Harris.THE HUMAN POOLRumors about Willi Schmidt's actions during the Second World War were enigmatic, to say the least. He worked for U.S. Intelligence out of Switzerland; he cut black-market deals on the side; he rescued scores of Jews from the Nazis. Saint or sinner? Either way, Schmidt was strictly murky waters -- and reports of his death in 1945 surprised no one. Sixty years later, Joe Hoover is convinced Schmidt is still alive, armed with a false name and a fortune in pharmaceuticals. For years, Hoover, former Intelligence courier for the American spymaster Allen Dulles, has been haunted by misgivings about his own wartime role in his boss's top-secret financial partnership with the Third Reich. Now, someone wants Hoover dead. Back in Europe, Hoover discovers that operations he thought had ended long ago are still being played out. Forming an uneasy alliance with Vaughan, an undercover journalist investigating neo-Nazi traffic of Kurdish refugees, he begins to unravel a conspiracy that leads deep into his past, to his days mixing with Nazi officers in the supposedly neutral cities of Zurich, Istanbul, and Budapest, where enemies did deals over cocktails. At each step, Hoover finds the shadow of Willi Schmidt and the specter of World War II's most grotesque and enduring legacy -- a trade in people: the human pool.Set against a vivid historical backdrop, The Human Pool mixes fiction and fact to explosive effect. Chris Petit has crafted his finest novel yet -- a cosmopolitan, thinking-person's thriller that turns the world inside out and traces its veins: It spells nothing less than the rebirth of the great espionage novel.

'One of Britain's most visionary writers' DAVID PEACE‘An appalling, beautifully-lit abyss’ ALAN MOOREA dark, chilling and mesmerising thriller set in wartime Berlin, for fans of Joseph Kanon and Robert Harris.Berlin 1943. August Schlegel lives in a world full of questions with no easy answers. Why is he being called out on a homicide case when he works in financial crimes? Why did the old Jewish solider with an Iron Cross shoot the block warden in the eye then put a bullet through his own head? Why does Schlegel persist with the case when no one cares because the Jews are all being shipped out anyway? And why should Morgen, wearing the dreaded black uniform of the SS, turn up and say he has been assigned to work with him?Corpses, dressed with fake money, bodies flayed beyond recognition: are these routine murders committed out of rage or is someone trying to tell them something?Praise for Chris Petit's previous novels: 'Hugely impressive and highly readable; in the tradition of Thomas Harris's The Silence of the Lambs' Financial Times'Ferocious invention marks this novel out as special' The Edge'Ambitious and intelligent'  Times 'Puts Petit in the first rank' Metro'A zigzagging narrative as byzantine and blackly pessemistic as late James Ellroy' Independent on Sunday'An example of the genre near its best. Gorky Park with something to spare; well worth anyone's weekend' Guardianfor The Psalm Killer

'No denying the book's power' Nick Rennison, Sunday Times‘The real skill of this rigorous, disturbing novel lies in the way Petit steadily and unsensationally allows his protagonists to discover the full horror of the hellhole they are in’ Guardian'One of Britain's most visionary writers' David PeaceFrom the author of the highly acclaimed The Butchers of Berlin comes a devastating, haunting and brilliant follow up. . .By 1943 Auschwitz is the biggest black market in Europe. The garrison has grown epically corrupt on the back of the transportations and goods confiscated, and this is considered even more of a secret than the one surrounding the mass extermination.Everything is done to resist penetration until August Schlegel and SS officer Morgen, after solving the case of the butchers of Berlin, are sent in disguised as post office officials to investigate an instance of stolen gold being sent through the mail. Their chances of getting out of Auschwitz alive are almost nil, unless Schlegel and Morgen accept that the nature of the beast they are fighting means they too must become as corrupt as the corruption they are desperate to expose.Even if they survive, will it be at the cost of losing their souls?       Praise for Chris Petit:'Powerful evocation of a city living in terror' Sunday Times Crime Club'Ambitious, darkly atmospheric' The Times'Hugely impressive and highly readable; in the tradition of Thomas Harris's The Silence of the Lambs' Financial Times'Ferocious invention marks this novel out as special' The Edge'Ambitious and intelligent'  Times'Puts Petit in the first rank' Metro'A zigzagging narrative as byzantine an blackly pessemistic as late James Ellroy' Independent on Sunday'An example of the genre near its best. Gorky Park with something to spare; well worth anyone's weekend' Guardian for The Psalm Killer

The new novel from the author of the highly acclaimed The Butchers of Berlin, soon to be a TV seriesBerlin, July 1944, a world of illicit jazz clubs, sexually generous young women, suspect art dealers, last-ditch zealots and a city defined by crumbling infrastructure, advanced terror, dirty secrets and deep politics — and then there is August Schlegel, caught askance in a web of totalitarian mayhem.Everybody knows what happened on 20 July: Führer Adolf Hitler miraculously survived an assassination attempt when a bomb failed to kill him. Schlegel, a reluctant employee of the Gestapo, finds himself in the foolhardy position of questioning the official version, knowing it is the last thing he should be thinking. Was it a propaganda stunt, or a deception or was something more extreme going on, perhaps a cover-up connected to the mysterious burning down of a Berlin clinic? A deadly political dance takes Schlegel all the way up to Party Secretary Martin Bormann, the Chancellory’s sinister ‘black pope’.Information is controlled, informers are everywhere, secrecy remains the cornerstone of the regime, yet someone appears interested in digging up a carefully buried scandal in the Führer’s past private life, an incestuous affair with his young niece that ended mysteriously in 1931. Rumours circulate of a ‘Hitler confession’.Trapped in a kingdom of lies, Schlegel discovers the blighted present and a censored past are connected in ways he could never have imagined. The niece’s tragic end is intimately bound up with the fate of his long-lost father, whom Schlegel had always believed absconded to Argentina and died there, until he finds a private 1925 edition of Mein Kampf, dedicated to ‘Anton Schlegel’, signed, ‘In eternal gratitude, Adolf Hitler.’The identity of Schlegel’s father — and whether he is still alive and operating as a secret puppet master — becomes inseparable from the enigma of a shapeshifting Führer, going back to the early days when he was known to Anton Schlegel as Herr Wolf.Questioning the official version of events, Chris Petit offers a dazzling reinterpretation of history, showing how the deeper secret truths invariably turn out to be personal.Praise for Chris Petit:'No denying the book's power' Nick Rennison, Sunday Times‘The real skill of this rigorous, disturbing novel lies in the way Petit steadily and unsensationally allows his protagonists to discover the full horror of the hellhole they are in’ Guardian'One of Britain's most visionary writers' David Peace'Powerful evocation of a city living in terror' Sunday Times Crime Club'Ambitious, darkly atmospheric' The Times'Hugely impressive and highly readable; in the tradition of Thomas Harris's The Silence of the Lambs' Financial Times'Ferocious invention marks this novel out as special' The Edge'Ambitious and intelligent'  Times'Puts Petit in the first rank' Metro'A zigzagging narrative as byzantine an blackly pessemistic as late James Ellroy' Independent on Sunday'An example of the genre near its best. Gorky Park with something to spare; well worth anyone's weekend' Guardian for The Psalm Killer

The new novel from the author of the highly acclaimed The Butchers of Berlin, soon to be a TV seriesBerlin, July 1944, a world of illicit jazz clubs, sexually generous young women, suspect art dealers, last-ditch zealots and a city defined by crumbling infrastructure, advanced terror, dirty secrets and deep politics — and then there is August Schlegel, caught askance in a web of totalitarian mayhem.Everybody knows what happened on 20 July: Führer Adolf Hitler miraculously survived an assassination attempt when a bomb failed to kill him. Schlegel, a reluctant employee of the Gestapo, finds himself in the foolhardy position of questioning the official version, knowing it is the last thing he should be thinking. Was it a propaganda stunt, or a deception or was something more extreme going on, perhaps a cover-up connected to the mysterious burning down of a Berlin clinic? A deadly political dance takes Schlegel all the way up to Party Secretary Martin Bormann, the Chancellory’s sinister ‘black pope’.Information is controlled, informers are everywhere, secrecy remains the cornerstone of the regime, yet someone appears interested in digging up a carefully buried scandal in the Führer’s past private life, an incestuous affair with his young niece that ended mysteriously in 1931. Rumours circulate of a ‘Hitler confession’.Trapped in a kingdom of lies, Schlegel discovers the blighted present and a censored past are connected in ways he could never have imagined. The niece’s tragic end is intimately bound up with the fate of his long-lost father, whom Schlegel had always believed absconded to Argentina and died there, until he finds a private 1925 edition of Mein Kampf, dedicated to ‘Anton Schlegel’, signed, ‘In eternal gratitude, Adolf Hitler.’The identity of Schlegel’s father — and whether he is still alive and operating as a secret puppet master — becomes inseparable from the enigma of a shapeshifting Führer, going back to the early days when he was known to Anton Schlegel as Herr Wolf.Questioning the official version of events, Chris Petit offers a dazzling reinterpretation of history, showing how the deeper secret truths invariably turn out to be personal.Praise for Chris Petit:'No denying the book's power' Nick Rennison, Sunday Times‘The real skill of this rigorous, disturbing novel lies in the way Petit steadily and unsensationally allows his protagonists to discover the full horror of the hellhole they are in’ Guardian'One of Britain's most visionary writers' David Peace'Powerful evocation of a city living in terror' Sunday Times Crime Club'Ambitious, darkly atmospheric' The Times'Hugely impressive and highly readable; in the tradition of Thomas Harris's The Silence of the Lambs' Financial Times'Ferocious invention marks this novel out as special' The Edge'Ambitious and intelligent'  Times'Puts Petit in the first rank' Metro'A zigzagging narrative as byzantine an blackly pessemistic as late James Ellroy' Independent on Sunday'An example of the genre near its best. Gorky Park with something to spare; well worth anyone's weekend' Guardian for The Psalm Killer

'No denying the book's power' Nick Rennison, Sunday Times‘The real skill of this rigorous, disturbing novel lies in the way Petit steadily and unsensationally allows his protagonists to discover the full horror of the hellhole they are in’ Guardian'One of Britain's most visionary writers' David PeaceFrom the author of the highly acclaimed The Butchers of Berlin comes a devastating, haunting and brilliant follow up. . .By 1943 Auschwitz is the biggest black market in Europe. The garrison has grown epically corrupt on the back of the transportations and goods confiscated, and this is considered even more of a secret than the one surrounding the mass extermination.Everything is done to resist penetration until August Schlegel and SS officer Morgen, after solving the case of the butchers of Berlin, are sent in disguised as post office officials to investigate an instance of stolen gold being sent through the mail. Their chances of getting out of Auschwitz alive are almost nil, unless Schlegel and Morgen accept that the nature of the beast they are fighting means they too must become as corrupt as the corruption they are desperate to expose.Even if they survive, will it be at the cost of losing their souls?

From the bestselling author of The Psalm Killer and The Butchers of Berlin 'One of Britain's most visionary writers' David PeaceA breath-taking contemporary thriller for readers of Robert Harris, John le Carré​ and Martin Cruz SmithWhen a government minister is shot there are many suspects but few leads. Days before the attempted assassination, Charlotte Waites, a Home Office analyst, dismissed a crucial intel flag and now has to account for her actions. Dragged into a web of intrigue that will draw in everybody from the prime minister to her ailing father, she must try to get the bottom of the mystery while confronting dark secrets from her family's past. Complex, gripping and deftly-handled, Ghost Country is work of staggering imagination that, from Northern Ireland to Covid, looks at the complexities of Britain's recent history and distils them into an unforgettable literary thriller.

From the bestselling author of The Psalm Killer and The Butchers of Berlin 'One of Britain's most visionary writers' David PeaceA breath-taking contemporary thriller for readers of Robert Harris, John le Carré​ and Martin Cruz SmithWhen a government minister is shot there are many suspects but few leads. Days before the attempted assassination, Charlotte Waites, a Home Office analyst, dismissed a crucial intel flag and now has to account for her actions. Dragged into a web of intrigue that will draw in everybody from the prime minister to her ailing father, she must try to get the bottom of the mystery while confronting dark secrets from her family's past. Complex, gripping and deftly-handled, Ghost Country is work of staggering imagination that, from Northern Ireland to Covid, looks at the complexities of Britain's recent history and distils them into an unforgettable literary thriller.

A Telegraph ‘Best Crime and Thrillers of 2025’ selection'One of Britain's most visionary writers', David Peace ‘That uniquely valuable writer and independent film-maker Chris Petit’, Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian'A tale for our feverish times ... It's fascinating to wander round Petit's baroque imagination' The Times 'A vertiginous, compulsively readable séance of a book.' James Riley, 3:AM Magazine'One of the most fascinating and forensic voices within British counter-culture.' The Quietus'A nightmarish view of the human capacity for destruction on both the personal and political level, rendered with horrible conviction', Jake Kerridge, Daily Telegraph'Chris Petit weaves a complex web of contradiction and hidden truths, adhering to the principle that the most ‘normal’-seeming lives can conceal sinister reality ... Provocative and multifaceted, here Petit challenges complacency, forcing the reader to confront uncomfortable truths.' Buzz Magazine 'This provocative patchwork of a novel will stay with you as it excoriates complacency', Crime Time ‘Chris Petit is a master of the dark thriller arts. Come In and Shut the Door pushes open a clandestine entrance into another dimension, a Visconti-like world beyond the edge of night.’ Nicholas ShakespeareTHE FINAL DAYS OF ADOLF HITLER ARE SHROUDED IN MYSTERY. WHAT REALLY HAPPENED IN THAT BERLIN BUNKER? AND WHAT HAPPENEND NEXT?When Parker loses his faith and quits studying for the priesthood, he finds himself back in London, looking for employment. He accepts an offer to work as amanuensis to the sinister Robinson, who earns a living as a collector of dubious historical objects.Parker’s duties involve meeting those who have an interest in purchasing the kinds of artefacts in which Robinson specialises. As he becomes immersed in a world of secret histories, Parker discovers things that will lead him into the darkest corners of 20th-century history and that great fault line of civilisation, institutional corruption, of which he is a victim.With a cast of corrupt police officers, property speculators, Russian Mafiosi, abusive Roman Catholic priests, Second World War bomber pilots, Eva Braun, Martin Bormann and Adolf Hitler, Come in and Shut the Door is a bold, brave and scatological masterpiece by one of our best and most original writers.

A Telegraph ‘Best Crime and Thrillers of 2025’ selection'One of Britain's most visionary writers', David Peace ‘That uniquely valuable writer and independent film-maker Chris Petit’, Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian'A tale for our feverish times ... It's fascinating to wander round Petit's baroque imagination' The Times 'A vertiginous, compulsively readable séance of a book.' James Riley, 3:AM Magazine'One of the most fascinating and forensic voices within British counter-culture.' The Quietus'A nightmarish view of the human capacity for destruction on both the personal and political level, rendered with horrible conviction', Jake Kerridge, Daily Telegraph'Chris Petit weaves a complex web of contradiction and hidden truths, adhering to the principle that the most ‘normal’-seeming lives can conceal sinister reality ... Provocative and multifaceted, here Petit challenges complacency, forcing the reader to confront uncomfortable truths.' Buzz Magazine 'This provocative patchwork of a novel will stay with you as it excoriates complacency', Crime Time ‘Chris Petit is a master of the dark thriller arts. Come In and Shut the Door pushes open a clandestine entrance into another dimension, a Visconti-like world beyond the edge of night.’ Nicholas ShakespeareTHE FINAL DAYS OF ADOLF HITLER ARE SHROUDED IN MYSTERY. WHAT REALLY HAPPENED IN THAT BERLIN BUNKER? AND WHAT HAPPENEND NEXT?When Parker loses his faith and quits studying for the priesthood, he finds himself back in London, looking for employment. He accepts an offer to work as amanuensis to the sinister Robinson, who earns a living as a collector of dubious historical objects.Parker’s duties involve meeting those who have an interest in purchasing the kinds of artefacts in which Robinson specialises. As he becomes immersed in a world of secret histories, Parker discovers things that will lead him into the darkest corners of 20th-century history and that great fault line of civilisation, institutional corruption, of which he is a victim.With a cast of corrupt police officers, property speculators, Russian Mafiosi, abusive Roman Catholic priests, Second World War bomber pilots, Eva Braun, Martin Bormann and Adolf Hitler, Come in and Shut the Door is a bold, brave and scatological masterpiece by one of our best and most original writers.

With an introduction by Alan MooreIt was always the same nightmare. Cross saw them lined up in rows, in stretches of city wasteland - those derelict spaces once described to him by a child as the blank bits where things had been before they'd got blown up.It is 1985 and a killer moves through Belfast's blighted streets. In a time and place ruled and divided by political and religious differences, this series of crimes cuts across all those boundaries. Detective Inspector Cross, together with Westerby, a young policewoman, enters a maze of conspiracy and paranoia, and, as the investigation draws closer to the truth, they find themselves in a nightmare world, with little hope of escape.The Psalm Killer is Chris Petit's epic thriller set during the Irish Troubles. Masterfully written, disturbing and exciting, it is a book of immense intelligence and a real classic of its genre.